Universes
For the other game, see The Game. Universes & Unrealities is a cosmic game played by Celestial beings, apparently similar to Dungeons & Dragons, but the 1vs1 avatar battle looks to be played as a PvP online game. It is sometimes simply called The Game. It served as a major plot point in Housepets! for many years, focusing primarily on King, until ending with Heaven's Not Enough. General Information Universes & Unrealities focuses on players getting followers to worship them and an avatar to act on their behalf. To gain followers players can offer deals, project dreams or perform limited miracles, but are restricted by the mana they have to do it, which accumulates in the players' temple headquarters; spawn location of the temple can give bonuses like a bigger mana pool. The followers fill up players' mana as their main function. Between followers, the player can choose an avatar which will have a share of his power, exceeding that used on miracles. Avatars have classes and they grow in different manners according to it. Some classes grow quicker but sometimes it can be disruptive to the mortals. The session of Universes & Unrealities played in Housepets! is mean to be a duel between the players, who had chosen Earth of Dimension Prime as their battle map. The winner will lead their gaming group and the loser will be locked in a mortal body for a full lifetime. Players ' ' *'Great Kitsune' />Game Master of the play. Serves as a judge for disputes between the players and make the calls and important decision in the play. He must remain impartial (but this doesn't mean un-involved). *'Pete the Griffin' />Played with a strategy of 'early sacrifices, later rewards' but was countered by Spirit Dragon. Pete began the game by spawning his temple in the middle of the desert for a big mana pool. He was locked inside the temple by Dragon's curse of the Mysterious Temple, restricting his abilities to just project dreams. This caused Pete to have a delayed start due to the difficulty of gaining followers. Desperate, Pete made promises about equality between Humankind and Animalkind successfully getting a mortal human to relocate his temple in a better location, a forest close to a city. Here Pete begin to finally gain followers, and his temple was finally open by Zach but he could not be used as an avatar. Being some millenniums behind Dragon, Pete decided he would use an avatar with a powerful class. />While still trapped in the temple, the target was Grape at first as the Dream Sunderer. Peanut was another option but he was incapable to take any of them thanks to Dragon own followers. Pete switched to a Dark Paladin class which gets bonuses for mortal age and youth; to get both, Pete turned the human Joel Robinson into a dog: King. Although King was not yet his avatar, Pete kept working with King. />Dragon interfered one last time with Pete's plans, which resulted in King's situation being determined to be against the rules by Kitsune, forbidding Pete to enter the game's arena and meddling with King. Pete didn't give up so easily and attempted to force King's cooperation by stealing his fate in heaven, but was caught. Finally, after King became accustomed to being a dog, Pete tried to turn him into his avatar by stating that he will forfeit within a year, a fact that will turn King back to human. When the year was nearly over, King called to Pete in order to call his bluff. When Bailey learns about The Game, she chooses to take King's place and became Pete's avatar, a White Avenger, an avatar more powerful than the one King would had been. ::Pete's Pieces: /> Grape (Intended avatar) /> Peanut (Intended avatar) /> King (Indended avatar) /> Bailey (Avatar) /> Mr. Henry Milton (Probably minion) /> Keene (Minion) /> Zach (Prophet) *'Spirit Dragon' />Not so much of Dragon's strategy is shown, but it appears that she wanted to force Pete to give up by sabotaging every plan of his. What Dragon did in the past millennium is not clear, although she did have an avatar named Satau in 5000 BC. In recent times she gained followers by granting them powers, Tarot being her current avatar, Sovereign Spiritist class, and Sabrina serving as relief. Dragon likes the things her way and when that isn't the case it appears she may whine and be generally upset. ::Dragon's Pieces: /> Tarot (Avatar) /> Sabrina (Relief) End of the Game With Tarot and Bailey finally battling, King was turned back to human and with the help of Fox, they followed a trail left by Sabrina with Fido that brought them to Sandwich house where Peanut took them to a place in the forest to give Joel the Cosmic Lamp as Tarot instructed. This caused Cerberus to appear and asked Joel for his fate. Cerberus led them to Heaven where they spent some time and King (back to dog since in heaven one can look as one wants) learnt from Bahamut that he can solve all the matters related to The Game by himself; waking up at home as a Corgi thanks to his fate in hand. Asking Keene for help, he brought Karishad, who was texting Tarot all the while. Karishad led King, Fox and a group to Australia where they found Tarot, Bailey and Sabrina. King persuaded everyone to stop playing for the Celestials and they all went to a soda shop to drink milkshakes and await the consequences of their choice. At the Soda Shop arrived Pete and Dragon followed by Kitsune and Cerberus, then Kitsune informed the players about the choice of their avatars giving them ten minutes to change their minds, they both failed and Pete, trying to force Bailey to fight, threatened to destroy King's fate. With a little intervention from Cerberus, Pete broke down emotionally and apologized; Dragon then realized she too was upsetting her followers (usually by interfering in their love lives.) Kitsune explained the penalties of losing. The avatars will suffer a diminish in their powers but sparks of it will remain while both demigods will be spending at least sixty years as mortals. Finally he offered Joel a blind choice (although very bluntly hinting at the outcome) which would result in either a comfortable life as a human, or a return to his life as a dog, but without Celestial intervention. Joel took the hint and chose to remain with his friends and wife, and became a dog permanently. As Spirit Dragon and Pete headed into a portal to be reincarnated as mortals, The Game ended. For now... Rules Although not all the rules are stated in the story, some of the basics are known such as: *The only allowed parties are Cats and Dogs. **Since Pete could take Keene as minion and used Zach as prophet, maybe other species can be part of the game but not be directly involved. *The game must not prevent mortals from passing into eternity unmolested. *The Free Will and Free Agency Rule: Mortals must agree with the Celestials requests, they cannot be forced to do something. **Being goaded, blackmailed, misled, or otherwise tricked into compliance still constitutes agreement, even if the mortal is unwilling. **The Policy of Intrinsic Benevolence (see below) surpass this rule. *Policy of Intrinsic Benevolence: The Celestials can perform actions for a mortal's own good with or without consent. **Sometimes if it is for the best of the mortal, mortal choices can be overridden. *Players can not use their magic to directly influence enemy characters or third party characters. Trivia *Even though Universes & Unrealities being called The Game at times it must not be confused with The Game (a mistake Peanut made in Callback Theater). *For this play was used the 467 Billionth Edition of Universes & Unrealities. *It is possible this play had Babylon as a previous setting, although no stated, there are some hints: **In And She Said It Had No Practical Value, in the first arc of Pete (Grape's dream), it is said the "tomb" (temple entrance) has Akkadian writing that Peanut read. Babylon was an Akkadian City. **The battle map shown in The Truth, The Whole Truth has "BABYLON" printed and "GARDENS" added with red marker. **In On Purpose Keene stated that his 'father', picked an old legend from Mesopotamia alluding the deal he made with Pete. Babylon was city of Mesopotamia. **Satau, who was Spirit Dragon's 2nd avatar is from ancient Egypt in 5000 BC. Category:Celestials